Baby-Sitters Club 085

by Ann M. Martin

  My dreams of stardom were flying out the window.

  By now, the rest of the members of the BSC had arrived. I figured we could settle down and forget I even mentioned tap.

  But noooo. Shannon Kilbourne and Dawn Schafer were holding onto a bookshelf and doing perfect falaps (or maybe shuffles). Kristy was trying to imitate them, but her tap-dancing looked like soccer practice.

  Only Mary Anne Spier had the good sense to stay seated.

  "Come on, Mary Anne," Kristy urged her.

  "I, uh, have to do some updating," Mary Anne replied, blushing. She was holding the BSC record book in front of her, like a shield.

  Mary Anne blushes a lot. She's the shyest, sweetest, most sensitive person on earth. Also the most organized. Which makes her a perfect club secretary. You should see that record book. In her neat handwriting, she fills a calendar with all our jobs and conflicts (doctor and dentist appointments, family trips, Kris-ty's practices, Jessi's dance classes, and so on). She also keeps an up-to-date client list, with addresses, phone numbers, rates charged, and special needs, likes, and dislikes of the kids we sit for. And, believe it or not, she enjoys doing this! Like Kristy, Mary Anne used to live on my street. You'd never think those two opposites would be best friends, but they are. Actually, they do have things in common. Both are short and brown-haired. And they both had pretty sad lives that changed for the better.

  Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was a baby. Her dad raised her by himself, and he went overboard with rules. Right through seventh grade Mary Anne had a super-early curfew, and she had to wear little-girl clothes and keep her hair in pigtails.

  Mr. Spier began to loosen up a little over time. But things really changed when Dawn Schafer moved to town. See, Dawn's mom used to be sweethearts with Mary Anne's dad, back when they went to Stoneybrook High School. But Dawn's grandparents thought he was too low-class or something, so the romance went kersplat. Dawn's mom moved to California, married a guy named Jack Schafer, had Dawn and her younger brother, divorced her husband, and came back to Stoneybrook. By that time, Mrs. Schafer had forgotten about her old boyfriend Richard Spier. Then Dawn became close to Mary Anne, and together they found out about their parents' long-ago romance. So ... Dawn and Mary Anne matched them up again. And we all cried at the wedding.

  Mary Anne and her dad moved into the Schafers' farmhouse, which is two hundred years old and extremely cool. Now the Schafer/ Spiers are one big, happy family.

  Sort of.

  Dawn's brother, Jeff, hated Stoneybrook. From the moment he moved here, he was miserable and homesick. Mrs. Schafer finally let him move back to California to live with his dad, and he's been much happier.

  Recently Dawn became homesick, too. So she went back to California, but only for a few months. (During that time her dad remarried, and Kristy, Mary Anne, and I went to the wedding.) Dawn and I are sooooo different. Physically, for one thing. Her hair is practically white, and she has light, freckled skin. Another big difference is our taste in food. Now, I have nothing against healthy eating. Seriously. I do eat unjunky food. But I just don't understand how anyone could get excited about tofu. (Have you ever tasted the stuff? It's like eating warm socks.) Dawn can get excited about it, though. Plus she gets excited about non-food things such as global warming, ozone layers, rain forests, and animal testing. She is such an independent thinker. She doesn't care what anyone else thinks of her.

  As alternate officer, Dawn takes over whenever another member is absent. Lately she's been our treasurer, since Stacey left the BSC.

  Which brings me to the story of Stacey.

  Okay. First of all, Stacey is (or was) a very cool girl, and one of the original BSC members. She has gorgeous golden-blonde hair, and an incredible sense of style — sophisticated and urban and up-to-the-second. She was born and raised in New York City, and she often visits her dad there (the McGills are divorced).

  Anyway, Stacey recently met this guy, Robert Brewster, who's cute, athletic, smart, and sensitive. Plus he's in LUV with her. So, naturally, Stacey began spending a lot of time with him and his friends. But then she started arriving late to BSC meetings. And backing out of jobs. And acting superior to other BSC members. And not inviting club members to a party at her house (I was the only one invited, which made me feel weird).

  Then came the Big Fight. Everyone blew up at Stace during a BSC meeting (and vice versa). She quit and Kristy fired her at the same time.

  1 was pretty mad at Stacey then. I still don't hang out with her, but I've calmed down. I've started saying hi to her in school. (The other club members don't, which I think is kind of immature.) I wish Stacey had never met Robert. I have nothing against him. Or against her. It's just the situation. I miss Stacey, especially at our meetings. I could picture her that Wednesday, trying to tap dance. She'd probably be just as klutzy as the rest of us, but she'd look great.

  "Uh, guys," I said to the thundering herd. "I don't think I'm cut out for this." "No, you're fine!" Jessi insisted.

  But before Jessi could show me another way to look like a klutz, my clock radio clicked to five-thirty.

  "Okay, enough," Kristy harrumphed. "This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club will come to order!" Panting for breath, we all sat down.

  "The first order of business," Kristy said, "is Claudia's problem. Okay. You've had a tap lesson. Now, Shannon and I would be happy to give you a drama lesson." Drama lesson?

  "Whoa," I protested. "Can't we just, like, talk about it?" "You bet," Kristy replied. "Shannon, you have the floor first." Thank you, Kristy Thomas, talk-show host.

  Shannon, by the way, is one of our two associate members (the other is Logan). Associates aren't required to attend meetings, but Shannon's been helping out since Stacey left. Shannon goes to a private school called Stoney- brook Day. (The rest of us go to Stoneybrook Middle School.) She's in tons of extracurricular activities there, including drama club.

  "Well, we started You Can't Take It With 'You," Shannon said. "Right now we're just blocking, though." "Not the football kind," Kristy remarked.

  Duh.

  "No. Blocking is mapping out all the movements. Entrances, exits. Stuff like that has to be precise. It's like choreography, sort of." "I remember seeing some of that in Peter Pan rehearsals. Is it hard?" I asked.

  "A little. All your moves happen on specific lines of the dialogue. You mark down all the moves in your script. You memorize your cue lines. Then, after you've memorized your own lines, you've memorized the blocking, too." Right. Sure. Gee, that sounded easy.

  I might as well join the math club.

  "What happens if you forget your lines during a performance?" I asked.

  Shannon smiled. "That's called 'going up/ The actor's nightmare. Happens to everybody." Oh, yeah? Well, not to me.

  My list was a bust. Zero for six.

  The rest of the meeting was pretty busy with phone calls. We didn't talk much more about my problem. Which was okay. I didn't want to make it seem like a big deal.

  Ease up, Kishi, I told myself. Life wasn't so bad.

  Just dull.

  I said good-bye to everyone, then flopped onto my bed. In about ten minutes, I'd have to start helping with dinner. Not enough time for homework, and I didn't feel in an artistic mood.

  I flicked on my clock radio. It was tuned, as always, to the local radio station, WSTO. A rock song was playing, and I listened to the end of it. My eyes started feeling heavy. I could feel myself dozing off.

  "And that was U 4 Me, rockin' it for you here on WSTO!" chirped this goony-sounding deejay. "We'll have more music for you in a minute, but first let me tell you about our coooooool connnntesssssst. ..." Those last two words were full of echo or reverb or whatever they call that. It was giving me a headache. I reached out to turn the radio off.

  "Say, kids, if you've been listening to me and thinking, 'Hey, I could do that,' well, here's your chance. You can be the host of your own show on WSTO. A kids' show. That's right. If you're between the ages of ten a
nd fourteen — that's years, ha ha — you can have your own one-hour radio show, twice a week for ... a fuuullll monnnnnth!" My hand froze.

  "You find the guests/' he went on. "You plan and emcee the show. It's all up to you, if you're the winner of our Host of the Month Contest! To enter, just tell us why we should hire you — on one sheet of paper, please. Make it serious, make it funny, make it you Don't forget to include your name, age, address, and a description of yourself and your interests. We'll announce the winner on Monday, so hurry. And now, more greaaaat muuuusid" My mind was in warp speed. ^ My very own radio show? Me, Claudia Kishi, a deejay?

  Yes. I could see it.

  This was it.

  This was what I was looking for! Chapter 3.

  No. No. No.

  Everything sounded awful.

  I dropped my pen, propped up my elbows on my desk, and buried my face in my hands.

  Think, Claudia! What had happened to me? I used to be a pretty decent writer. Seriously. When I was doing my Personals column for the SMS Express, I had to deal with tons of horribly written personal ads. Sometimes I'd rewrite them from scratch. First I'd figure out exactly what the person was trying to say. Then I'd cut out the words that weren't necessary.

  The essentials. That's what I needed.

  The brilliance would come later.

  I wrote out a list. Just short sentence fragments. Exactly why I wanted the job.

  Then I worked on putting it all together into an essay. I tried to keep it short, sweet, and really me.

  I consumed a Milky Way, a box of Peppermint Patties, two Chunkies, and half a bag of Cape Cod potato chips.

  Finally I had to go to sleep. My brain was fried. (My stomach didn't feel too great either.) I worked on the essay the next morning, before I went to school. Then, during lunch, I convinced Emily Bernstein (the SMS Express's student editor) to let me use the newspaper's word processor for my final draft.

  I typed my essay out carefully. Then I closed my eyes, held my breath, and prepared for the worst part.

  Spellcheck.

  My spelling stinks. The computer went wild. It must have stopped at a hundred misspelled words. I thought it would crash from overwork.

  But when it was done, my essay looked like this: WHY I WANT TO BE WSTO HOST OF THE MONTH by Claudia Kishi Here Is my idea of a great host for a kids' show: Someone who's not shy but is also a good listener. Someone who knows what kind of music, fashion, and jokes kids like. Someone who understands the problems and concerns of kids of all ages. And most of all, someone who's reliable and hardworking.

  And that someone is me, Claudia Kishi! Okay, first of all, let me say right out, I don't have any radio experience. But I'm an expert at talking. Just ask any of my friends. (On second thought, don't. Take my word for it!) As for reliable and hard-working? Well, I baby-sit a Jot. In fact, I'm vice-president of a baby-sitters club that meets three times a week. I also used to run a column in the Stoneybrook Middle School newspaper, called Claudla's Personals.

  From my column and my baby-sitting", I've learned a Jot. I think I Jmow what Jcids Jike — from infants right on up to eighth graders! I once heard an old saying that went, "Having an open mind is one thing, but letting bats fly around inside it is something" eJse entirely." WeJJ, my mind is open to the experience of a radio show. But the only things flying around inside it are my ideas for programming. I can't wait to share them with you! Not bad, huh? Serious but humorous, not too stiff, well-spelled. And it's always nice to throw in a little quotation. (I'd been dying to use that one. I read it in a book once, and I think it is so cool.) "Good afternoon, this is Claudia Kishi on WSTO," I said as I pressed the print key.

  Whoa, did that feel good! I started giggling.

  Then I forced myself to stop. Do not NOT NOT get your hopes up, I thought. Probably dozens — hundreds — of kids would be entering. Kids who deejayed in summer camp. Whose parents were in the radio business. Who worked on school "radio stations" broadcast over P.A. systems. Who could write Pulitzer Prize-winning essays.

  I had to be realistic.

  One thing was sure: I did not want anyone to know about this. That way, if I won, I could surprise them all with the good news, but if I lost, I could just keep the humiliation to myself.

  I took the essay out of the printer, folded it, and put it in an envelope. Before I stuck it in my shoulder bag, I gave it a little kiss.

  "Tomorrow we expect a high in the low fifties, cooler by the Sound ..." It was Monday, 5:29. I was in my bedroom, along with the other members of the BSC, listening to my clock radio. Well, I was listening to the radio. Everyone else was gabbing about I don't know what.

  I was a train wreck. For five days I had not stopped thinking about my essay. I rewrote it over and over in my mind. I couldn't sleep.

  And now, the Big Day had arrived. Today the winner was going to be announced.

  When? On which show? I had no idea. I hadn't paid attention to that part.

  Which meant I had to listen to everything.

  Beeeeep. "WSTO news time is five-thirty,'* said the announcer.

  "Order!" barked Kristy.

  I managed to zap myself back into reality.

  Dawn held up the BSC's "treasury," a ma-nila envelope. "Dues day!" Everyone muttered and grunted and reached for money. (No complaining from me, though. I don't mind dues. Mainly because they help pay my phone bill.) "And now, from the sixties," the WSTO deejay was saying, "an old, moldy, good, and goldy! Here are the Beatles with — " "Claudia, could you turn that thing off?" Kristy said.

  "I love the Beatles!" I blurted out. (Okay, I was exaggerating.) "Since when?" Kristy asked.

  "Well, uh, okay, I'll lower it." I turned the knob (slightly) and changed the subject. "Um, anybody want Skittles?" "Me! Me!" a chorus of voices answered.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," the Beatles wailed.

  I dug the Skittles out of my sock drawer. No one seemed to mind the song much. Soon it was business as usual — munch, gab, gab, munch. I kept quiet, my ears tuned to the radio.

  The phone must have rung, because I noticed Kristy snatching up the receiver. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club," she said. "Okay. We'll call you right back." Then she hung up and announced, "We need two sitters for the Barrett/ DeWitt kids on Saturday." Mary Anne looked in the record book. "Let's see, Dawn's free, and so are you, Kristy." Kristy called Mrs. DeWitt back. "It'll be me and Dawn, Mrs. DeWitt. . . . Okay, 'bye." Kristy hung up. The radio droned on: "We have a three-mile backup on Route Ninety-Five. . . ." Kristy yawned. Jessi and Mal were playing Hangman on the floor. Mary Anne was scribbling in the notebook. Dawn and Shannon were looking at a magazine.

  And I was listening to: "... allow at least a half hour leaving Stamford to the east ..." Kristy reached for the radio. "This is giving me a headache." "No, don't!" I snapped.

  Rrrrrrinnnng! Saved by the phone. I leaned over the radio, blocking Kristy, and picked up the receiver. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club!" I said.

  "Yes, hello, dear. This is Ginger Wilder, and I was wondering if someone was free on — " "And now we have for you the winner of our Host of the Month contest . . . ontest ... on-test ..." the announcer intoned (with lots of reverb).

  "Aaaagh! Mrs. Wilder, can I call you back?" I said.

  "Oh, my. Is something wrong?" Mrs. Wilder asked.

  "About five minutes, okay? Sorry!" "Fine. I'll be h — " Click.

  I hung up. I cannot believe how rude I was. Around me were six dropped jaws and twelve bewildered eyes.

  I turned up the radio. "We have read them all," the announcer said. "And they were ter-rrrrri/ic! But we believe we have a winner. The first place essay for the WSTO Ho-o-o-o-st of the Month contest was written by . . ." A drumroll began. I wanted to die. I was sitting there with my stomach inside out, and they were playing a drumrolll "Would you mind telling us what is going on here?" Kristy said testily.

  "Sssshhhh!" I hissed.

  "Claaaaaaaaudia Kishiiiiiiiiii!" blared the announcer.

  I did not re
act. I did not even smile. I couldn't. My body had frozen and my heart had stopped.

  No. It was a joke. He was kidding. Or he was wrong. He read the wrong name. That had to be it.

  "Claudia is an eighth-grader at Stoneybrook Middle School who likes art, reading mysteries, and fine dining . . ." "Fine dining?" Kristy murmured.

  "Aaaaaaaaaaagh!" I shrieked. "I won! I won!" I jumped up and started falaping around the room.

  Everyone else was staring at the radio as if it had suddenly grown horns.

  "So, Claudia," the announcer went on, "if you're within the sound of my voice right now, please call five-five-five-WSTO. To repeat, that's — " I was already on the W.

  The phone rang on the other end — once, twice, three times.

  I thought I would faint.

  I caught Mary Anne's glance. She was grinning at me. Tears were forming in her eyes.

  Finally I heard a male voice say, "WSTO, Radio Stoneybrook." "Huck — heck — hum . . ." Lovely. I'd won the contest of my dreams, and a frog had jumped down my throat.

  "Excuse me, could you speak louder?" the voice asked.

  "I'm Caudia Klishi!" I stammered.

  "Yes, what can I do for you?" "Claudia Kishi! I'm Claudia Kishi! I won the Host Contest!" "Oh! Hey, congratulations! That was some essay!" "Thanks." "Listen, the station manager, Mr. Bullock, would like to tell you about the job in person. Say, tomorrow after school? Four-thirty or so?" "Sure!" He gave me directions. I grabbed the nearest pen and scribbled them down on a candy wrapper.

  After blabbering a good-bye, I calmly, quietly hung up.

  "Ya-hoooo!" Kristy whooped.

  The room exploded. Mary Anne and Dawn threw their arms around me. Jessi and Mal jumped up and down, squealing.

  "You're a star!" Dawn said.

  "How come you didn't tell us you entered?" Kristy asked.

  "I wanted it to be a surprise!" I explained.

  For the rest of the meeting we talked about nothing else. I celebrated by digging out a box of Hostess chocolate cupcakes. (We almost forgot to call Mrs. Wilder back.) I could not wait to tell my family the news.